Trivia #6 Older (3/10/2013)

[Trivia Master]

Tonight's Civil War Trivia Question Value: 10 points, 1 bonus point goes to the player with the first answer. This question will be open until Monday between 9 and 10pm EDT, when another question will be posted! As usual: Please do not post your answers anywhere but in this forum!
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How many years older was Jefferson Davis than his wife, Varina Howell?
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Post your answer below. Good Luck!

Trivia will not be posted on the following night: Thursday, March 28, 2013​

 

[101combatvet]

17 years

 

[Red Harvest]

18

 

[AUG]

18 years older Jeff Davis was 35 and Varina Howell was 17

 

[Floridaman1985]

17 years, 11 months

 

[Nathanb1]

18 years.

 

[adisciu9]

18

 

[reading48]

18 Yrs...?????

 

[Ken Rich]

21 years

 

[hoosier]

Jeff Davis was born in June 1808 and Varina was born in May 1826.

So the answer to the question is seventeen years (almost, but not quite, eighteen).

 

[NFB22]

17 yrs, 11 months

 

[101combatvet]

Although a more precise answer would be 17 years, 11 months and 4 days... depending on actual times of birth.

 

[drlord]

Tonight's Civil War Trivia Question Value: 10 points, 1 bonus point goes to the player with the first answer. This question will be open until Monday between 9 and 10pm EDT, when another question will be posted! As usual: Please do not post your answers anywhere but in this forum!
.
How many years older was Jefferson Davis than his wife, Varina Howell?
.
Post your answer below. Good Luck!

Trivia will not be posted on the following night: Thursday, March 28, 2013​

16

 

[Union_Buff]

17

 

[samgrant]

17 yrs., 11 mos. -let's call it 18 (J - 06-03-08, V - 05-07-26)

 

[jmb57]

18 years older

 

[Keith Cochran]

18

 

[MegKBedrosian]

18 years older

 

[Eagle eye]

1 month shy of 18 years

 

[Championhilz]

There is a problem with this question, as Jefferson Davis himself was not sure about his date of birth. This quote is from the Papers of Jefferson Davis website at Rice University:

Birthdate

It is unclear whether Davis was born in 1807 or 1808, and Davis himself was unsure. He wrote an acquaintance in 1858 that "there has been some controversy about the year of my birth among the older members of my family, and I am not a competent witness in the case, having once supposed the year to have been 1807, I was subsequently corrected by being informed it was 1808, and have rested upon that point because it was just as good, and no better than another." For more background on the date question, see The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 1, pages lxv-lxvi.

If he was born in 1807, he was 19 years older than Varina, who was born in 1826. If he was born in 1808, he was 18 years older than his wife.